Matthew Nicholson

Australian Sport - Better by Design? : The Evolution of Australian Sport Policy

Section 1 - Context 1. Sport and Australian Society 2. Sport Policy Foundations Section 2 -Evolution 3. Benign Indifference: 1920-1971 4. Crash-through: 1972-1982 5. Augmentation: 1983-1996 6. Integration: 1996-2003 Section 3 - Practice 7. Backing Australias Sporting Ability: themes and assumptions 8. Elite Sport Development : Targeting High Performance 9. Community Sport Development: Targeting Participation 10. Junior Sport Development: Pathways and Retention 11. Management Improvements in Sport: Performance Measurement 12. Fair Play in Sport: Drugs, Discrimination, Disadvantage and Disability 13. Regulating Sport. The Case of Sport Broadcasting section 4 - Evaluation 14. How should outcomes be monitored and measured? 15. What does it all mean?

Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy, and Social Connectedness as Mediators of the Relationship Between Volunteering and Well-Being

ABSTRACT This study examines the potentially mediated relationship between volunteering and well-being. Using survey data from a random sample (N = 2,990) of the population of the state of Victoria, Australia, three hypotheses were tested: Volunteers will report higher well-being than nonvolunteers; volunteers will report higher self-esteem, self-efficacy, and social connectedness than nonvolunteers; self-esteem, self-efficacy, and social connectedness will mediate the relationship between volunteer status and well-being. Results supported the hypotheses and showed that self-esteem, self-efficacy, and social connectedness were all significant mediators of the volunteering–well-being relationship. Increased social connectedness associated with volunteering was found to be the strongest first step in these pathways. This points to the importance of social connection for well-being, but future research using longitudinal designs is required to further test these relationships and provide the capacity for evidence of causality.

Motivations to Volunteer and Their Associations With Volunteers’ Well-Being

Volunteerism is a key form of community involvement that can provide both physical and mental health benefits for volunteers as well as positive outcomes for the community. However, volunteers become involved for different reasons and recent studies suggest that other-oriented volunteers may accrue greater health benefits than self-oriented volunteers. To investigate this possibility, we surveyed 4,085 Australian volunteers about their motivations using the Volunteer Functions Inventory, together with their well-being using measures of self-esteem, well-being, self-efficacy, social connectedness, and social trust. As predicted, these individual differences in well-being proved to be differentially associated with other-oriented and self-oriented motivations. Furthermore, other-oriented motives were positively correlated, and self-oriented motives were negatively correlated, with satisfaction and intentions to continue. We discuss implications of these patterns for organizations that work with volunteers.

Towards a national sports safety strategy: Addressing facilitators and barriers towards safety guideline uptake

Background Limited information exists about how best to conduct intervention implementation studies in community sport settings. Research should be directed towards understanding the context within which evidence-based injury prevention interventions are to be implemented, while continuing to build the evidence-base for the effectiveness of sports injury interventions. Objectives To identify factors that influence the translation of evidence-based injury prevention interventions into practice in community sport, and to provide specific evidence for the effectiveness of an evidence-based exercise training programme for lower limb injury prevention in community Australian football. Setting Community-level Australian football clubs, teams and players. Methods An exercise-based lower limb injury prevention programme will be developed and evaluated in terms of the implementation context, infrastructure and resources needed for its effective translation into community sport. Analysis of the community sports safety policy context will be undertaken to understand the barriers and facilitators to policy development and uptake. A randomised group-clustered ecological study will be conducted to compare the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance (RE-AIM) of the intervention over 2 years. Outcome Measures The primary outcome will be evidence-based prevention guidelines that are fully supported by a comprehensively evaluated dissemination plan. The plan will detail the support structures and add-ons necessary to ensure sustainability and subsequent national implementation. Research outcomes will include new knowledge about how sports safety policy is set, how consensus is reached among sports safety experts in the community setting and how evidence-based safety guidelines are best developed, packaged and disseminated to community sport.

The Australian Football League's Recent Progress: A Study In Cartel Conduct And Monopoly Power

Over the last twenty-five years, the Australian Football League (AFL), and its predecessor, the Victorian Football League (VFL) has become a central feature of the Australian sporting landscape by creating and managing a national competition. However, in the 1980s it was a Melbourne-based league facing serious structural and financial problems as player costs exploded. At the same time, a number of clubs were unable to trade profitably, and the richer clubs were toying with the idea of forming a break-away competition. The transformation of the AFL from a parochial suburban competition to heavily commercialised national league is analysed through the prism of cartel structure and conduct. It is concluded that first, even in its previous guise as the VFL, it adopted many cartel-like features, including controls over player transfers, fixed admission prices, and gate equalisation policies. Second, the establishment of a governing Commission in 1984 strengthened its monopoly power, and enabled it to set a singular vision for the games development. This vision, in turn, enabled the AFL to create a national participation program that became the envy of every other sport association in Australia. Third, in achieving this outcome, the AFL tightened its authority over its member teams, administrators, coaches and players. Finally, within this cartel arrangement, member clubs surrendered their autonomy in return for an assurance that they would share the benefits from the AFLs growth and national expansion. In short, the AFL has strategically exploited its cartel features and monopoly power to become Australias dominant sports league.

Web 2.0 platforms and the work of newspaper sport journalists

This article reports on research that explores whether Australian newspaper sport journalists use Web 2.0, the second generation of the internet, in their work and, if they do, how. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 newspaper sport journalists, three from each of the nine Australian daily newspapers with the highest circulation. The research found that the most common Web 2.0 platforms used by Australian newspaper sport journalists in their everyday work practices were Twitter, fan forums and Facebook. While each is used differently for reporting, sourcing and researching news, and for interacting with readers, this study found that most sports journalists used this technology within the boundaries of traditional journalistic practices and norms.

Social Capital And Sport Policies In Australia

Abstract This article analyses how the concept of social capital and related themes of social inclusion, social connectedness and community well-being manifest within sport policies of Australian state governments and how this illustrates a high degree of policy transfer among policy agencies. The article argues that government policy makers appear to have made a number of unfounded assumptions about the relationship between sport and social capital. The article concludes with a discussion of how the use of social capital in these policies illustrates a high degree of policy transfer due to institutional similarities between policy agencies and trans-state communication.

Life at the track: Country race clubs and social capital

The aim of this article is to report the findings of a study that explored both the contributions of country race clubs to social capital within rural and regional communities as well as their utilization of social capital. The article reviews the key concepts associated with social capital and their relationships to sport, and presents evidence of how country race clubs contribute to and benefit from social capital in their respective communities based on a series of interviews with individuals associated with race clubs and their communities. The final section of the article discusses the implications of these findings in relation to what we currently know of social capital and community level sport clubs.

Involvement in sport and social connectedness

This paper explores the relationship between involvement in sport and non-sport community organisations and social connectedness. Data were collected on types of community involvement, selected demographic variables and social connectedness. The findings support the contention that involvement in sport organisations is associated with increased levels of social connectedness. Sport involvement was found to be a predictor of social connectedness, while involvement in non-sport community organisations was not. The study also found that the tenure and intensity of involvement in organisations were not significantly associated with social connectedness scores.

A Profile of Australian Sport Journalists (Revisited)

This article presents key findings from a survey of Australian sport journalists, the first of its kind since Henninghams (1995) seminal study in the early 1990s. Australian sport journalists participated in an online survey, which asked questions related to their profile and work practices. The findings reveal that in many respects the profile of Australian sport journalists is similar to what it was almost twenty years ago, yet there are indications that both the professional lives of sport journalists and the broader sport media industry are undergoing significant change. Like their predecessors, contemporary Australian sport journalists are ‘30-something’, predominantly Australian-born, work in a male-dominated environment, plan to be working in journalism or the media in five years’ time and have similar views about the functions of the news media. The contemporary Australian sport journalists differ in that they are far more educated, are more likely to be located in Victoria and are now more likely to work in non-print media forms such as radio and online than their predecessors, who were far more likely to work in the print media.